Homebrew Discussion SNES Online - Mod Discussion

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18Phoenix

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Sorry to ask a bit confused, but what is the target you want to reach?
PAL roms are working fine like the most other roms, I already tested a lot.
Do you want to reach roms working without deactivating the signature check,
find out what the correct footer would be for each game ?
I thought the main target is to find out how the one or other optimization works to avoid errors or missing compatibility.

Btw I extracted the original main again and checked the main.elf file.
My given position is still the same so your file must have been changed somehow.
 
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DarkAkuma

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My goal is to get other Preset ID's working.

The PAL IDs are just something I posted because they exist and should work the same as any other stock game ID's. Theres only a handful of IDs that work, so it should be welcome to know a few others do too. I requested that they be tested to prove that. Beyond that, PAL ROMs may seem to be "working fine" atm with other ID's, but unless you play every such game all the way through, there's no proof of that. The best ID to use with a game is always the official ID intended. At least on the SNESC. For the switch right now, most IDs are currently locked out, so a stock games ID booting a game at all is obviously better... for the moment...

I've looked into it, and I had a different version of the main.elf for some reason. Some addresses lined up between our versions, some didn't. I have since resolved the issue and the proper hack is now...:

-REMOVED-

Coming soon, SMK version hopefully. Assuming the zelda version works, then the SMK version should be better for compatibility.
 
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18Phoenix

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I can't say for sure, but Switch games have a fixed Savegame size limit,

NES / SNES:
UserAccountSaveDataSize: 66060288 (63 MB)
UserAccountSaveDataJournalSize: 1048576 (1MB)
TemporaryStorageSize: 26214400 (25 MB)

Each game stores settings in the save and strange crash's appear if the savegame is too big.
This data is stored in the control.nacp, so you have to repack the nca to change values.


I checked the values in the older NES files, they never changed, but the limit did.
So the reason must be somewhere else, mustn't it ?
 

DarkAkuma

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Ok. Ignore that zelda version hack. It doesn't work.

But I have good news! Thanks to RadMcFist for the testing, I can confirm that the SMK version DOES work! He even got one of my SFA2 patches running displaying good graphics!

Code:
// Enable all Preset IDs and SNESC SFROMS - SMK Version
Go to 0x22770
Change "F3 03 1F AA"
To "25 FF FF 17"

or

[Enable all Preset IDs and SNESC SFROMS - SMK Version (on)]
04000000 00021EE8 25FFFF17
[Enable all Preset IDs and SNESC SFROMS - SMK Version (off)]
04000000 00021EE8 F3031FAA

To restate and explain the purpose of this hack, and what it actually achieves...

There's a function in the SNES Online app code that checks all stock game IDs and processes some code unique to each game if those ID's are used. Generally that code seems to be achievement tracking BS, but something in there can be seen as a sort of validation. This hack makes every non-stock game preset ID share that code with SMK.

But this does not mean that all PresetIDs are pointless and can be gibberish if you want. They are only seen as SMK as far as that validation check, basically. There are still other optimization and compatibility checks in the emu that check for these other non-stock game ID's. So this hack achieves a sort of hybrid of both games. A little bit, and hopefully non-glitch inducing amount of SMK, and a bit of the game the ID belongs to.
 
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18Phoenix

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He even got one of my SFA2 patches running displaying good graphics!
Enable SMK version and a special footer ? Which patch of yours was it ?
But with this enabled, all runs like before, even SMK works :lol:
It's nice to use it by cheat function, good for testing.
 
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DarkAkuma

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Enable SMK version and a special footer ? Which patch of yours was it ?
But with this enabled, all runs like before, even SMK works :lol:
It's nice to use it by cheat function, good for testing.

He wasn't sure for a bit. But turns out it was my sfrom tool version patch. Which means this hack inadvertently solves the mystery of how to get traditional SNESC format .sfroms working when we know the code to support them is in the emu code.

That's good to hear. The intent behind this and the Zelda version of the hack was to allow the stock games/ids to work just as the did before, and just only allow other IDs+games to boot like they were a stock game too.

This may not be the final version of the hack. I may be able to optimize it a little more after some brainstorming and testing. There are some glitches with SFA2 observed, even if it mostly looks good. That could be in part because its using the traditional .sfrom format, and not having access to footer params. Or just user error.

Speaking of. Yea. The switch footer format for SDD1 games is not figured out yet it seems, as those tests didn't boot. But I'll be looking into it.

Oh yea. Going to share this pic that RadMcFist took for me. =)

2019093008341100-05dclhkbq.jpg
 
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gamji

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Ok. Ignore that zelda version hack. It doesn't work.

But I have good news! Thanks to RadMcFist for the testing, I can confirm that the SMK version DOES work! He even got one of my SFA2 patches running displaying good graphics!

Code:
// Enable all Preset IDs and SNESC SFROMS - SMK Version
Go to 0x22770
Change "F3 03 1F AA"
To "25 FF FF 17"

or

[Enable all Preset IDs and SNESC SFROMS - SMK Version (on)]
04000000 00021EE8 25FFFF17
[Enable all Preset IDs and SNESC SFROMS - SMK Version (off)]
04000000 00021EE8 F3031FAA

To restate and explain the purpose of this hack, and what it actually achieves...

There's a function in the SNES Online app code that checks all stock game IDs and processes some code unique to each game if those ID's are used. Generally that code seems to be achievement tracking BS, but something in there can be seen as a sort of validation. This hack makes every non-stock game preset ID share that code with SMK.

But this does not mean that all PresetIDs are pointless and can be gibberish if you want. They are only seen as SMK as far as that validation check, basically. There are still other optimization and compatibility checks in the emu that check for these other non-stock game ID's. So this hack achieves a sort of hybrid of both games. A little bit, and hopefully non-glitch inducing amount of SMK, and a bit of the game the ID belongs to.

which file do i change "F3 03 1F AA" to "25 FF FF 17"? Its that edizone crash for me
 

18Phoenix

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I tried out a bit.
Tried StarOcean + SFA2 using the sfrom tool, with and without SMK footer. And fixed sfrom files found in the net, aswell with and without SMK footer.
Without SMK Version (on) they just don't start.
With it enabled the app always crashs and exits using these 2 games.
Never had crashes before, so absolutely not good.
 
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RadMcFist

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Hmm, something went wrong on your end then. Maybe it's because you're using the cheats? Try without those. Edit the main.elf in a hex editor with both the signature check bypass hack by Falo and with DarkAkuma hack from a few posts above. Then use DarkAkuma's sfrom tool to generate an sfrom from your Street Fighter Alpha 2 and Star Ocean roms. Those should work as they are, without adding any footers.
 
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18Phoenix

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.... Those should work as they are, without adding any footers.
Ok, thanks, I though so, too. I'll try that.

So now I know that it doesn't work with using the cheat.
Strange, why ? Does it only work with an unchanged main ? I just added the 4 new cheatlines into the old cheatfile.

cheat 4 doesnt work.jpg

Ok, but with the main edited it finally works for me, too. Especially the translated version:

SO_engl_1.jpg SO_engl_2.jpg SO_engl_3.jpg

SFA2_1.jpg SFA2_2.jpg SFA2_3.jpg SFA2_4.jpg SFA2_5.jpg

BUT if I just use the sfrom tool with the roms it doesn't work.
But I found sfroms in the net which work but these are bigger:
SO 10.1MB instead of 6MB, SFA2 8.71MB instad of 4MB.
So they both got special patches, correct ?

So without footer, ok. Are added footer totally ignored now ?
The SMW footer is used automatically without using any footer, did I understand that right ?
Could it be that some special roms will not work with that edit that worked before ?
 
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RadMcFist

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Ok, thanks, I though so, too. I'll try that.

So now I know that it doesn't work with using the cheat.
Strange, why ? Does it only work with an unchanged main ? I just added the 4 new cheatlines into the old cheatfile.

View attachment 181191

Ok, but with the main edited it finally works for me, too:

View attachment 181197 View attachment 181198 View attachment 181199

View attachment 181192 View attachment 181193 View attachment 181194 View attachment 181195 View attachment 181196

BUT if I just use the sfrom tool with the roms it doesn't work.
But I found sfroms in the net which work but these are bigger:
SO 10.1MB instead of 6MB, SFA2 8.71MB instad of 4MB.
So they both got special patches, correct ?

So without footer, ok. Are added footer totally ignored now ?
The SMW footer is used automatically without using any footer, did I understand that right ?
Could it be that some special roms will not work with that edit that worked before ?
I guess the cheat method doesn't work because of discrepancies between the edited main and the stock main and what it hopes to find, etc. I find it easier to just edit the main and use it with LayeredFS, just like adding games, that way I can also make sure if I made a mistake instead of something just going wrong in with the cheat manager, like what happened to you before.

Using the sfrom tool with the correct roms works, you're probably using bad roms or doing something wrong. The bigger roms you're downloading were made with DarkAkuma's sfrom tool in the first place. The way I understand it, and I'm fully aware that I may be making a full of myself in public and in front of DarkAkuma no less, is that those roms are bigger because they are SDD1 games with decompressed data and extra magic so canoe can know where to look for it. SDD1 is a SNES special chip that compresses data so the developers could fit more stuff on the tiny sized roms back them. That data is decompressed in these roms and that's why they're bigger.

I don't fully understand the rest of your post. No footer is added to these roms, specially not the SMW footer. Everything that worked before will work now, what didn't work probably still won't work yet (except for these two games). I don't think you should go editing all the roms you had already inserted, there's no reason at all to do that. I think that (for now at least) you should just use the sfrom tool method for Street Fighter Alpha 2 and Star Ocean.

By the way, do you also get graphic glitches in SFA2 during the intro and at the end of any round? Just to make sure it's not just a stupid mistake on my end. I shouldn't be the only one testing these things, please play these two games and report anything you see.
 

18Phoenix

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Using the sfrom tool with the correct roms works, you're probably using bad roms or doing something wrong.
That's often the big question, what is the "correct" rom ?
I always use sfc roms with [!], so verified good dumps.
But there exist aswell smc files, which seem to be good.
How could I know which one is prefered?
 
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RadMcFist

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That's often the big question, what is the "correct" rom ?
I alsways use sfc roms with [!], so verified good dumps.
But there exist aswell smc files, which seem to be good.
How could I know which one is prefered?
Just using the one with [!] should be enough. In any case, when you load it with the sfrom tool it should be obvious if it recognizes it correctly. Go to advanced options and see if the PresetID is changed. If it didn't, it's the wrong rom. If it did, don't change anything (don't apply any PCM patches but do apply SDA and VC patches, these should be the default settings anyway), save the sfrom and that's it.
 

18Phoenix

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Just using the one with [!] should be enough. In any case, when you load it with the sfrom tool it should be obvious if it recognizes it correctly. Go to advanced options and see if the PresetID is changed. If it didn't, it's the wrong rom. If it did, don't change anything (don't apply any PCM patches but do apply SDA and VC patches, these should be the default settings anyway), save the sfrom and that's it.


But I did it the same, without any extra patches. ID is correct aswell. Is it 1.1.3.1 because it's an unofficial release (I love drag&drop) ?

SFA2 (U) [!]:

upload_2019-10-1_12-37-32.png
 
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RadMcFist

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But I did it the same, without any extra patches. ID is correct aswell. Is it 1.1.3.1 because it's an unofficial release (I love drag&drop) ?

SFA2 (U) [!]:

View attachment 181206
Are you sure that you downloaded the patches? Are they in the right place? Under Patch Status to the right, there should be a check box for SDA. Get the patches (SDA and VC, just skip PCM) from DarkAkuma's site. Try using the official release too. You already know the resulting sfrom has to be bigger than the regular rom, so it should be obvious once you save it whether it applied the patches or not. If it's not bigger, don't even bother trying making it work.
 

18Phoenix

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Aaaaah, I though NO patches.
Ok, with it looks like this:

upload_2019-10-1_13-6-29.png


BUT with SFA2 (U) [!].sfc the prog crashes/closes and there is a 0kb file as result :(
Both, 1.1.3.0 and 1.1.3.1
What have I made wrong, @DarkAkuma ?
 
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k1r92

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Aaaaah, I though NO patches.
Ok, with it looks like this:

View attachment 181208

BUT with SFA2 (U) [!].sfc the prog crashes/closes and there is a 0kb file as result :(
Both, 1.1.3.0 and 1.1.3.1
What have I made wrong, @DarkAkuma ?

it's a bug with SFROM Tool. I pointed it out to DarkAkuma a week or two ago.

The program crashes when trying to save Street Fighter Alpha 2 (E-PAL) with either (or both) PCM and SDA patches. A .sfrom is created (0kb) before the crash occurs. This bug is not present when using the American or Japanese versions and their respective PCM and SDA patches.
 
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